


Zero to Sixty

by stillscape



Series: tumblr prompts collection [2]
Category: Archie Comics & Related Fandoms, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, cop!Jughead, teacher!Betty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 08:06:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12104355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillscape/pseuds/stillscape
Summary: “Do you know how fast you were going back there, ma’am?”Betty shakes her head. “No. I mean, when you flashed your lights at me, I checked. I guess my foot just got a little heavy going down that hill.”Officer Jones looks to his right, at the road, and then back at her. “What hill?”In this moment, Betty realizes that there’s no way she’s avoiding a speeding ticket.





	Zero to Sixty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [village_skeptic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/village_skeptic/gifts).



> These "short Bughead AU fics" keep winding up...not entirely short.

Betty Cooper has always had a bit of a heavy foot, so when she’s finally pulled over not long after her twenty-first birthday, the only real surprise is that it’s taken five years for the cops to get around to it. She glances at the speedometer quickly before she starts to slow and pull over. 63 in a 55. Not great, she knows, but at least she was less than ten miles over the speed limit. 

The Cooper heavy foot is hereditary; so, too—she hopes—is the Cooper silver tongue. Her sister gets pulled over rather a lot, but has only received one ticket. Her _mother_ —well, at this point the cops don’t even bother pulling Alice Cooper over. They just flash their lights as a wary, polite reminder that slowing down might be a nice thing. 

Betty had not been allowed to take her driver’s license test until she’d passed Alice Cooper’s _talking your way out of a ticket_ improvisation classes. But it’s been more than five years since she practiced. 

She hears a light tap at her window, and reaches over to crank it down, making sure there’s a friendly smile on her face when she looks up at the cop. 

“What seems to be the trouble, Officer…” She takes a second to find his nametag. “Jones?” 

Officer Jones looks down at her. Crap, she thinks. He’s wearing dark aviator sunglasses, an unruly lock of dark hair falling over one side of them, and she can’t read his expression at all. He looks fairly young, though, which according to Alice can be either a good thing or a bad one—possibly easier to cow, but then, possibly more eager to follow the letter, rather than the spirit, of the law. 

It turns out Officer Jones falls on the latter half of the spectrum. 

“Do you know how fast you were going back there, ma’am?” 

Betty shakes her head. “No. I mean, when you flashed your lights at me, I checked. I guess my foot just got a little heavy going down that hill.” 

Officer Jones looks to his right, at the road, and then back at her. “What hill?” 

In this moment, Betty realizes that there’s no way she’s avoiding a speeding ticket. 

 

The second time he pulls her over, she isn’t speeding at all. Of this, she is certain. 

“Officer Jones,” she says, recognizing the misbehaving curl even before his nametag comes into view. “What seems to be the trouble this time?” 

“Ma’am, did you know you have a taillight out?” 

“Ugh,” Betty groans. “Is it the left one? I _just_ replaced that.” 

Officer Jones shakes his head. “No, the right. I’m afraid I’ll have to give you a warning,” he says. “License and registration, please.” 

Betty sighs deeply and hands them over; he walks them back to his car. 

He comes back a few minutes later wearing a somewhat perplexed expression, her license, registration, and a pink slip of paper extended in his hand. 

“Uh, ma’am…” 

“Hold this, will you?” she says, handing him the cover to her right taillight instead. “Thanks.”

“What are you doing?” 

“I told you, I just fixed the left one. I always buy two bulbs. Might as well fix this one now.” 

She installs the new bulb and pops the cover back on as Officer Jones places everything he’s holding onto the bumper. It’s a particularly warm day, and he removes his sunglasses to wipe the tiniest bit of sweat from his brow. His eyes, she notices, are a little bit piercing and a lot blue. 

“Guess you don’t need the warning, then,” he says, once she’s jumped back in her truck to demonstrate that the taillight is, in fact, fully functional. 

Betty’s never quite understood the whole “man in uniform” thing, but as she watches Officer Jones rip the little pink piece of paper into shreds, she thinks: _hmm, not bad_. 

 

The third time he pulls her over, it’s nothing special. It’s not even really a pull-over. She approaches a four-way a stop sign, and there he is, standing on the double yellow line. 

“Mandatory seat belt checks,” he says, when she’s rolled down her window. 

Betty rolls her eyes. “As you can see, Officer Jones, I am properly and securely buckled.” 

He nods. “Sorry for the inconvenience, Ms. Cooper.” 

 

The _fourth_ time he pulls her over, she’s already out of the truck and running past his car before he can even get out. 

“I know,” she calls, racing to pick up the stray _Register_ copies before they turn, legally, into litter. “I know a box of papers blew out of the bed of my truck.” There had been a tightly secured lid, there had, but you hit one good pothole, and—

“What the hell is all this?” 

“My parents’ newspaper. Their usual delivery person is out sick, so I’m running these over to Centerville for them.” 

He surveys the mess on the side of the road, nods a couple of times, and starts helping her clean up. 

 

The fifth time they meet, she pulls _him_ over. Sort of, anyway. She’s enjoying a quick cup of tea in the fifteen minutes she has before her eighth-grade honors English class begins when he walks by her open classroom door. 

Suddenly alarmed, Betty sets down her mug and runs to the hallway. 

“Officer Jones?” 

He turns around, looking pleasantly surprised when he sees her. “Uh…Ms. Cooper?” 

“Is something wrong?” 

“Wrong?” 

“Why are you at school?” Uniformed cops do not usually roam the halls of Riverside Junior High. 

(She notes, with some relief, that he is not wearing a weapon.) 

“Oh,” he says, obviously getting it. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m here for Career Day.” 

“Career Day,” Betty repeats. Nope, she’s still confused. Career Day is when the parents come in to talk about their careers, and… “You’re old enough to have a kid in middle school?” 

She recognizes, as the words leave her mouth, that this is not an appropriate question, even though he _can’t_ be older than twenty-five. He doesn’t even look like he needs to shave. 

Officer Jones doesn’t seem to mind, though; he just shakes his head. “No. I’m old enough to have legal custody of my little sister, who’s young enough to be in middle school.” 

Betty lets herself study his face for a few moments. 

“It’s a long story,” he says. 

“J.B.?” she asks, and smiles when he nods. “She’s a great kid. Really bright.” 

A half-embarrassed, half-pleased smile spreads across his face. “You’re Ms. Betty,” he says slowly. “I’ve heard a lot of good things about you.” 

 

The next time he pulls her over, she can’t figure out what the hell she did wrong. She wasn’t speeding, her taillights are all working, and no one is running any seat belt awareness campaigns. She’s confused when she rolls down the window, if not exactly annoyed.

“What seems to be the trouble this time, Officer Jones?” 

Officer Jones taps his fingers on the door of her truck, seemingly wrestling with some sort of emotional turmoil. 

“No trouble,” he says softly. He glances back at his own car; Betty takes a peek in her rearview mirror and sees J.B. buckled in the front seat, staring pointedly at her older brother. “Just, um… well, J.B.’s having a problem.” 

“Is she?” Betty asks. This time she twists around to get a better look at J.B. She hasn’t noticed anything amiss in class, and she knows it’s not _really_ her business, but if her older brother is her legal guardian, it’s not hard to guess that there might be some trouble at home. 

“Yeah,” he says, running a hand through his hair. The unruly curl lifts, but falls right back into its usual place. “Apparently, I won’t shut up about her English teacher.” 

A little chuckle rises in Betty’s chest, but she doesn’t let it out. “Oh?” she asks, in a voice she hopes is playful. 

He nods, gets as far as “So, uh…” and then falls silent. 

“Officer Jones?” she prompts, after a minute. 

“Just do it already, Jughead,” booms a young, familiar voice, and both Betty and Officer Jones jump. They both turn to the cop car, where J.B. holds the speaker mouthpiece up, eyebrows raised. 

“I should _not_ have taught her how to use the speaker,” he mutters. 

“That just took two years off my life,” Betty jokes, before something strikes her. “Wait. _Jughead_?” 

“Nickname,” he sighs. “Don’t ask. Anyway…” 

“Anyway,” she says, smiling at him. 

“Anyway,” he repeats. “Yeah, so apparently, I won’t shut up about J.B.’s English teacher, and she’s of the opinion that I need to do something about it, like ask her out.” 

Betty sucks her lower lip into her teeth, fighting back a bigger smile. 

 

The next time he pulls her over, it’s very, very literal. She’s walking, and an arm wraps around her waist and pulls her over, right into bed. 

She almost yelps, although J.B. spent the night at a friends’ house, so she doesn’t really need to be quiet. It’s just a habit at this point. There’s _technically_ no rule against her dating her student’s older brother, but still. 

“Why, Officer Jones,” she says softly, almost moaning as he nuzzles into her neck. “What seems to be the trouble?” 

“You got up,” he mutters. The words vibrate into her skin and down her body. 

She laughs, and lets him pull her over again, onto her back.


End file.
